Wall Street Journal Wins 2 Pulitzer Prizes

Andrea Elliott of The New York Times, left, was among the Pulitzer Prize winners announced today. She and her husband, reporter Tim Golden, spoke with Bill Keller, the executive editor.Credit
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

The Wall Street Journal won the Pulitzer Prize for public service yesterday for uncovering the unethical practices of business executives who had rewarded themselves millions of dollars by backdating stock options. The articles, by Charles Forelle, James Bandler, Mark Maremont and Steve Stecklow, have led to the federal investigation of more than 130 companies, and at least 70 top executives have lost their jobs.

In awarding The Journal its highest journalistic honor, the Pulitzer Prize Board said the paper had brought about “widespread change in corporate America.”

The Journal also won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, for a series of articles about the adverse effects of industrial development on China. The Journal was the only newspaper to win more than one award. The New York Times won the feature writing prize for a series called “An Imam in America,” written by Andrea Elliott, that focused on Sheik Reda Shata, the leader of a mosque in Brooklyn, and his struggle to reconcile Muslim tradition with American life. Ms. Elliott told colleagues in a newsroom ceremony that the Muslim community had at times been so difficult to penetrate that she felt she was covering “the no one will talk to me beat.”

The Boston Globe won for national reporting for articles by Charlie Savage documenting that President Bush had quietly disregarded portions of more than 750 laws enacted by Congress through “signing statements” that asserted that he had the power to bypass certain legal provisions because they conflicted with his interpretation of the Constitution.

In the investigative reporting category, Brett J. Blackledge of The Birmingham News of Alabama won for ferreting out nepotism, cronyism and corruption within the state’s two-year-college system. The prize for explanatory reporting went to The Los Angeles Times for a series called “Altered Oceans,” by Kenneth R. Weiss, Usha Lee McFarling and Rick Loomis, examining how industrialized society had altered the basic chemistry of the seas.

The Miami Herald won for local reporting for articles by Debbie Cenziper for “House of Lies,” revealing that developers had received millions of dollars to build housing projects that they never delivered on.

The staff of The Oregonian won in the breaking news reporting category for its coverage of the ordeal of the Kim family, which was lost for nearly nine days in Oregon.

Cynthia Tucker, a columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, won the prize for commentary for what the Pulitzer board cited as “her courageous, clear-headed columns.” Jonathan Gold, a restaurant reviewer for LA Weekly, won the prize for criticism for what the board called his “zestful” writing.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

The prize for editorial writing went to Arthur Browne, Heidi Evans and Beverly Weintraub of The Daily News of New York for “compassionate and compelling” editorials about workers at ground zero whose health problems had been neglected. The Pulitzer for breaking news photography went to Oded Balilty of The Associated Press for a photo of a Jewish woman defying Israeli security forces. The Pulitzer for feature photography went to Renée C. Byer of The Sacramento Bee for photos of a single mother and her young son as he died of cancer. Walt Handelsman of Newsday won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning. No newspaper or single topic dominated the awards, administered by Columbia University.

Sig Gissler, administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, said the board changed the “beat reporting” category to “local reporting” this year to honor a subject that, he said, was “the lifeblood of newspapers and is becoming more so.”

In the Pulitzer Prizes for the arts, Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff won the prize for history for their book “The Race Beat,” about coverage of the civil rights movement. This is the first Pulitzer for Mr. Roberts, 74, who covered civil rights for The New York Times and presided over the winning of 17 Pulitzer Prizes in his 18 years as the editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Cormac McCarthy won the prize for fiction for “The Road,” David Lindsay-Abaire won the drama award for “Rabbit Hole,” and Debby Applegate won the biography prize for “The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher.” The prize for nonfiction went to Lawrence Wright for “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.” Natasha Trethewey won the poetry prize for “Native Guard.” The prize in music went to Ornette Coleman for “Sound Grammar.”

The Pulitzer board also announced two special citations: one to the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, the other to the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. The board praised Mr. Bradbury’s “prolific and deeply influential career.” It said Mr. Coltrane, who died in 1967, had “masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz.”

The board also confirmed a footnote to the Pulitzer for spot news photography that was awarded in 1980 for a photograph of a firing squad in Iran. The photographer’s name was withheld out of concern for his safety. But The Wall Street Journal, in an article last December, named the photographer as Jahangir Razmi, and the citation from 1980 will be changed to give Mr. Razmi credit.

Correction: April 19, 2007

An article on Tuesday about this year’s Pulitzer Prize winners included outdated information from the Pulitzer board in some copies about the prize for editorial writing. After awarding it to the editorial board of The Daily News in New York, the Pulitzer board updated its Web site to note that it was won by only three writers from the paper: Arthur Browne, Heidi Evans and Beverly Weintraub. The article also referred incompletely in some copies to the reporters for The Wall Street Journal who contributed to the newspaper’s prize for public service. In addition to Charles Forelle, James Bandler and Mark Maremont, Steve Stecklow worked on the project about the unethical practices of business executives.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B8 of the New York edition with the headline: Wall Street Journal Wins 2 Pulitzer Prizes; History of Civil Rights Reporting Also Wins. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe